Utility Worker Gets Probation

November 25, 1992

MANCHESTER — A Northeast Utilities worker was granted two years of probation Tuesday in a July accident in which the truck he was driving struck and killed a construction worker in East Hartford, Superior Court officials said.

Richard E. Lenz, 60, of Newington, was charged with negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, in the July 23 accident that killed Calogero Giardina, 57, of East Windsor.

Giardina was working in an open, unprotected manhole when he was struck in the head by a front wheel of a truck driven by Lenz, police said. Giardina was a mason and laborer for Vespa Construction Co. of South Windsor.

The construction site was on Buena Vista Drive, a new street in the south end of East Hartford, where work was being done on storm drainage lines.

On Tuesday, Judge Terence A. Sullivan granted Lenz entry into the state's accelerated rehabilitation program, reserved for first-time offenders. The program does not require a defendant to plead to a charge and erases the charge if the defendant successfully completes the probation